Visual Spatial Learners Part I
I’ve always known my son is very smart – just not book smart. He has a hard time applying himself because he would rather be outside. He knows a lot about many different things, can express himself well and is creative. I have him in Ambleside Online Year 8 and he enjoys the reading he’s given and comprehends it well.
You give him simple computation of math facts and he’ll have calculation errors. Because of this, I started him in a low level of Math-U-See.
About a month and a half ago, I wrote into a Charlotte Mason Yahoo group I belong to expressing my discouragement with my 15yo son. The responses I received were so encouraging and helpful. Here is a portion of one of the responses I received.
I am so sorry to hear about your son and have great
sympathy for him. I was very much like him when I was in school and
always wanting to be someplace else and never quite fitting in. I
wasn’t a good student. I struggled with writing and math and
generally was in school for "social" (aka — chatting with friends).
I did manage to graduate and actually went on to college where I
promptly flunked out. My teachers all told me how smart I was and
would encourage me… "Carol, if only you would study harder, apply
yourself, work a bit more you could be a very good student." BUT I
WAS DOING ALL THOSE THINGS….it just didn’t make that much difference!
As a junior in high school, I accidentally <VBG!> took a test for the
Military and lo and behold found out that I was unusually gifted in
"spatial awareness". I didn’t know what that meant at the time but
it turns out that I was quite good at mechanical things, diagramming,
and deciphering code. I actually scored in the 98% of all Junior
girls in the nation and the armed forces started to beat down my door
to entice me to "join up!" I just thought the test was cool — lots
of neat puzzles and levers and diagrams showing the way motors work,
3D drawings that you had to turn around inside your head — fun stuff!
In fact, I took the test in less time than anyone else in the room.
My friends all came out complaining how hard it was and I told them it
was the easiest test I had ever taken (and this from a person who
cannot take tests!)
Never did I think that I was unique or had a special skill because it
certainly didn’t help me in school. In school, I was a loser. In
school, I couldn’t stay on task. In school, I couldn’t sit still.
In school, I longed to be at home or outside. I loved to dig in the
mud and dirt and build things with my hands. I loved to dream and
draw in my journal. I didn’t like reading, it was a chore for me and
made my headache. I would often fall asleep while reading or would
get to the end of the page and not remember what I had read. I often
re-read the same paragraph 10-12 times — I would lose my place on the
paper. If there were pictures or diagrams, that helped, but pages and
pages of text was like a nightmare to me. Worse yet, I couldn’t write
a proper sentence — it was full of grammatical errors so I made
myself sick everytime I had to write a paper. In math, I made simple
calculation errors, baby math mistakes like adding and subtracting. I
often could solve a problem in my head but couldn’t tell you how to do
it on paper. If my teacher told me to show him, I would melt and get
so embarrased. I simply would freeze at the blackboard — my mind
would go blank. In class I prayed the teacher wouldn’t call on me and
ask me to give a summary or conclusion. I was always in the wrong
place in the book or I missed half the instructions. Unless they were
written down, I couldn’t follow what she said. If she gave an oral
list, I would write the first one down only — the rest just floated
off into space. I couldn’t connect the dots in stories so to ask for
a book report was incredibly difficult for me. I could tell you odd
little things, round about details, but I couldn’t tell you the main
point, the theme, or even find the topic sentence! No, I walked
around and was always 4-steps behind everyone else. I was truly "lost
in translation" and often wondered why on earth the Lord chose to make
me and let me be born when he did. Why didn’t he put me in the Middle
Ages or the Pioneer days? Anytime would have been better than
smack-dab in the 1960s! UGH!
Your son sounds just like me :o). I would bet you
dollars-to-doughnut s that he is "lost in translation" too. He is
probably incredibly smart and tells you amazing things — just not the
nuts and bolts of his school work. I bet he is a wonderful guy,
loving and sensitive and full of very creative ideas. I bet he is
really a neat kid and everyone likes him — he just is lazy, unfocused
and generally unmotivated towards school? Am I close?
Pretty well everything she wrote I could say, "Yes, my son is just like that."
In her response she talked about Visual Spatial Learners. In my next post I’ll share some ways to know if you have a visual spatial learner.